An article about gender equality

[erratio]

http://denisdutton.com/baumeister.htm

"Note that all those things I listed — literature, art, science, etc — are optional. Women were doing what was vital for the survival of the species. Without intimate care and nurturance, children won’t survive, and the group will die out. Women contributed the necessities of life. Men’s contributions were more optional, luxuries perhaps. But culture is a powerful engine of making life better. Across many generations, culture can create large amounts of wealth, knowledge, and power. Culture did this — but mainly in the men’s sphere.

Thus, the reason for the emergence of gender inequality may have little to do with men pushing women down in some dubious patriarchal conspiracy. Rather, it came from the fact that wealth, knowledge, and power were created in the men’s sphere. This is what pushed the men’s sphere ahead. Not oppression."

I don't like it. Every feminist/irrational instinct in me screams that this guy is biased and wrong. I really don't like the idea presented, that from an evolutionary perspective women are only good for having families while men are good for creating everything else that makes life worthwhile. But he sure does write a persuasive argument, and my more logical instincts think he probably has something there. I also think that Maslow's hierarchy is probably to blame for the opinion that creating life is less valuable than all the other stuff that men are supposedly responsible for. I also think that I'm personally influenced a lot by the fact that I'm a lot more towards the male end of the spectrum when it comes to this sort of thing than most women would be, so I take the "women are good for nurturing" line almost as a personal insult since nurturing is not one of the terms anyone would ever use to describe me.

Comments

[quantumkitty.livejournal.com]

The problem with all this gender essentialist stuff is that what the sentence "Women are X; men are Y" really means is "On average, women are more X than men and men are more Y than women."

It's leaving out (1) the sample on which this claim is based (if, indeed, there is one at all, and it's not just based on what "everybody knows"); (2) the magnitude of the difference in averages (it might be negligible); (3) the standard deviation (the spread within one group could far outweigh the difference between groups). (That article touches on the idea of distributions at the beginning but then completely ignores it afterwards.)

And evolutionary psychology is mostly a big pile of just so stories. Look at how radically it's changed over the years; it can be used to justify anything.

Evolutionary psychology (as it's typically practiced) is saying, "I believe that difference X exists between groups A and B, and that the difference is biological. Let me come up with an evolutionary reason for it." It's justifications for already held hypotheses. It is not empirically based.

[erratio.livejournal.com]

You're right, most of this is an attempt to explain things without resorting to using real science. But I think that most social psychology is always going to be hopelessly biased and/or tainted. Do you think it's possible to practise it correctly?

[quantumkitty.livejournal.com]

Social psychology or evolutionary psychology (aka sociobiology)?

Social psychology is (or at least can be) a perfectly empirically based field. :)

Evolutionary psychology... I don't know. Because of the lack of empirical evidence about the psychology of humans' ancestors, it seems to me that it's very often going to be more justification than science. Especially because of the purposes to which it's often put.

[quantumkitty.livejournal.com]

But to be fair, a lot of theoretical linguistics is exactly the same. :) Theoretical linguistics just is a lot safer because it has no policy implications.

[erratio.livejournal.com]

Given that evolutionary psychology is, as you say, more or less unproveable, do you think there's any purpose in studying it?

I'm not too sure that there is. I found the article to be interesting in and of itself but the idea of his conclusions being put into practice is the sort of thing that would give me nightmares. Interesting from a purely theoretical point of view rather than a practical I guess.

[quantumkitty.livejournal.com]

I don't know. Certainly it's worthwhile to look at the facts of psychology and come up with explanations (hopefully falsifiable ones!) for why things are that way. And I think some claims in the realm of evolutionary psychology can be falsifiable.

If evolutionary psychologists cared more about making testable claims and didn't just care about spinning a good story or justifying their biases, I'd have a higher opinion of the field.

[quantumkitty.livejournal.com]

but the idea of his conclusions being put into practice is the sort of thing that would give me nightmares.

Is to ought, again.

One might just as easily take what he says as fact and say, "Yes, there are genetic reasons for women to behave like X and men to behave like Y - but that just means that we have to work to overcome our biological nature to rise to our true potential!"

Whether "nature" or "nurture" is valued more depends on your culture and time period... and what you're talking about. :)

[quantumkitty.livejournal.com]

Also, when you see an evolutionary psychology argument, pay close attention to the implied relationship between is and ought.

The value content of many such arguments is, "There is a disparity between these two groups in society, such that one group is getting the short end of the stick... But it's okay! Hey, look, I can prove both groups are just doing what they're doing because it's their biological destiny - the status quo is the way it should be!"

And also, they're ignoring how incredibly deep culture goes. (But hey, I'm a linguist - I'm more inclined to think in terms of characteristics that are universally human manifesting in specific ways based on what environment people are exposed to, than in terms of irreconcilable genetic differences between groups of humans.)

[erratio.livejournal.com]

Trust me, I did notice plenty of logic holes and handwaving towards the latter half ;) Especially the way he essentially ends up saying "some psychologists have argued that women act this way because they were brought up this way by society, but let's ignore that in favour of my theory which can explain the same facts by bringing evolutionary theory into it"

And it doesn't have to be that way. A better argument wouldn't have dismissed the nurture aspect so quickly.

[heinypoo.livejournal.com]

first of all, i believe it's a man who wrote this... u see, if a woman wrote this, she'll be considerate enough to not write it in such a way that would actually make people like me not wanna read it... i know english but the way it's written is shit and 'try hard'... i've read books women write.. they seem to be more confident in what they write whereas guys go spirally awkward around the bush just to prove they can write..
and women presents art so much better than men.. when a normal man does it, he's either judged as gay or weird whereas women presents beauty..
i still think we think equally but at times men are just so stubbornly stupid and fucked in their heads to think they can do better... serves them right when women actually THINK
and the domestic thing... it just shows how independent women are
stupid piece of shitheads in the category 'men' i tell ya
well, there are good ones around ... like me....
:P

[q-pheevr.livejournal.com]

Thus, the reason for the emergence of gender inequality may have little to do with men pushing women down in some dubious patriarchal conspiracy. Rather, it came from the fact that wealth, knowledge, and power were created in the men’s sphere.

This seems to me to be begging the question. If we want to understand where gender inequality comes from, then if this guy is right, we still need to find out why women were stuck doing the essential tasks while men got to do the optional, culture-building activities. All he's done (at least in the passage you quoted; I haven't bothered to read the rest) is to show how one kind of gender inequality can give rise to another.

[zola.livejournal.com]

Actually, I think gender inequality can much better be explained by "might makes right" and scarcity.

Slowly but surely, over the centuries, we've been moving from cultures where those who CAN grab the biggest slice of the pie DO. In the case of Western Culture, I think part of that change came about because of religion to an extent, and but most of it came from more abundance.

The role of religion cannot be underestimated. For example, did you know that during the middle ages when the Germanic tribes (Visigoths among others) were slowly overrunning the area, the Catholic Church was in large part responsible for curbing some of the excesses? As Christianity spread, the priests would declare a day of "God's Peace" and Christians would not fight on such a day. As social pressure to become a Christian grew (if you had goods to trade and the locals wouldn't trade with you because you were an infidel, that was a pretty powerful motivator, and, for that matter, still is...), "God's Peace" became more the norm, and when there is peace, trading and other activities can flourish, creating more abundance.

No matter what one thinks of the Catholic Church in the current day, truly, in the beginning, it did many good works. We have a lot of books (albeit religious ones) because the Church preserved the skill of reading. In many small towns and villages, the only literate person there was the priest. And there was quite a bit of emphasis on taking care of one's fellow human beings. Obviously, I'm not talking about later excesses, but the tenet of charity was very important to the early Church. And cooperation *also* encourages abundance, does it not?

It seems to me that if you look at different cultures, abundance seems to be driving the role of women far more than anything. And that makes sense, even from an evolutionary perspective. If you are in a small group and resources are scarce, the strongest man with the aggressiveness to match is going to get the greatest share of the resources, and then, just like now, people will "suck up" to that man in order to share in the resources. It's a perfectly legitimate strategy and still very much alive and well even now.

If you look at a place where there was plenty for all, such as Ancient Egypt, you don't see the oppression of women in such large measure. What you see are people who were overall content, not particularly war-mongering, and who had quite a bit of equality among the genders.

I think this is true still. Where access to wealth tends to be shared out amongst all citizens, gender equality is much greater--think Switzerland, or any of the Scandavian countries.

So I think it has nothing to do whatsoever with a biological role and everything to do with resources. Be it some sort of religious or cultural institution, or being in an area with abundant natural resources that are easy to get to, enough wealth that everyone gets a piece of the pie produces more equality than when specific groups are able to control access.

Childbearing is a temporary condition, and it sounds to me like that researcher ALSO forgot the historical fact that people didn't have as many children that survived to adulthood, thus lessening the "role of women", much like women are free to do other things now that average family size is smaller--the kiddies, after all, DO grow up! And when women have greater access to more abundant resources, you see much more equality.